Feast : A History of Grand Eating

A unique and fascinating history of grand eating by one of the UK’s best-known communicators. Sharing a meal, in particular a grand one, has always been a complex social mechanism for uniting and dividing people. Such an event could signal peace, a marriage, a victory, an alliance, a coming-of-age, a coronation or a funeral. The feast was a vehicle for display and ostentation, for the parade of rank and hierarchy, for flattering and influencing people as well as providing a theatre in which to exercise the art of conversation and the display of manners. In an age that has virtually abolished the shared meal as a central feature of daily living,Feastpresents a revelatory picture of a world we have lost. Beautifully illustrated, it traces fashions in food and the etiquette of eating -- from the elegance of the Roman villa to the austerity of the monastic refectory, from the splendours of the Renaissance banquet to the rigours of the Victorian dinner party.